Samsung will Attempt to Convert Wearables into Prepaid Credit Cards

Samsung can become creative at times in spite of their phones bursting into flames (too creative) or their CEO getting arrested for political corruption (no creativity). In fact, the South Korean tech giant may have some superb ideas for how to make mobile payment work. Instead of giving devices like smartwatches the full power of a credit card, Samsung’s new plan is to treat wearables more like prepaid credit cards. Each wearable will be loaded with a specific amount of cash and unable to charge any more than was already loaded. The concept is to put a limit on what a wearable can be used to make purchases.

That could allow for a couple of important things: First, it would be less of a problem if the wearable were stolen or lost since the device will not be able to make large charges. Second, Samsung imagines that it could also be a useful way for parents to give money to their teenage children since they could put a limit on the wearable device. In addition to limiting the amount of money placed in a mobile payment device, Samsung would also allow owners to put time limits on when the funds can be used. Should the amount not be used up before the time limit expires, access to the wearable’s amount would disappear.

This is all part of a new payments service Samsung is calling the “Contactless Companion Platform or CCP. Samsung will be launching CCP in partnership with only two carefully selected partners, a mobile wallet developer called Smartlink and the payment terminal manufacturer, Ingenico. At this point it is not yet clear nor has Samsung given an official launching date if users can use this system on any actual wearables from the Samsung line yet. No announcement has also been made on which Samsung devices would be targeted for this concept and what kind of app a user would need to use or download to make use of the service even if the wearable supported it.

But according to the company, there are some developments in the works, including some mechanical watches that support the payments system. So one can analyze that today’s wearables like smartwatches and the like may not only be useful at telling the time, tracking the number of steps you took while jogging, or how many calories you consumed or need to burn, it can now support keeping tabs on your money, especially money you entered into the wearable.